This is sort of a ‘personal finance’ question post.
An uncle of mine is in very bad financial shape.. He is in his late 50s and has no money saved, no equity in anything, and 1.2 million in new debt. 500k on house fully maxed out, and he just spend 700k on an office building and partially improvements… The project isn’t complete, so he needs to get another loan – which he probably isn’t going to be able to get.
He’s broke.. and he doesn’t know it or why. It’s too late to help him with his past.. but does anyone have any suggestions on how I can help him? Are there groups for habitual spenders? His problem is beyond spending for materialistic reasons because part of his habitual spending is through charity… he donates far more money than he can afford to musuems, charities and random people.. and then he wonders why he’s broke.
Obviously theres some serious denial in play here.. and it’s not going to change without some outside help. For 20 years he’s been saying “it’s finally turning around” “I’m finally doing it” – but it’s obviously just delusion after delusion.
What can I tell this guy? Are there support groups for this? Are there financial advisors that take an enforcing role – like make his money less easily available to prevent him from spending it? I don’t know enough about his condition to sit him down and give him advice.. I think he needs some sort of financial intervention.
I have a relative who is also totally in “denial” and whose spending is out of control.
Nine months ago when I told him “don’t do it” he went ahead and put a deposit on an expensive new house. Escrow closed on the new place two weeks ago and — as expected — his existing home isn’t even on the market yet since it needs repairs. and his idea of what it might bring is very high.
He will be paying two mortgages for the foreseable future, just as I told him he might, and I think he is speeding towards bankruptcy.
My point here: I told him in depth and detail — and I did it calmly — why his timing was totally wrong, and he just became angry. I did no good at all.
It is true, some people just will not listen. They live in a dream world. People with spending problems really are like alcoholics who just don’t believe they have a problem.
He even got angry? Not entirely surprising. Early this year a young couple told me of their plan to invest in RE property in the CA desert (somewhere between L.A. and Barstow). They probably had heard of all that people making a killing in RE. I tried to convey to them, in a friendly way and not using direct language, that the RE party was over, that prices had shot up to ridiculous levels, and that we were about to start a downward trend in prices, like the one we saw following the last boom. Now I think that, in typical blame-the-messenger fashion, they dislike me for what I told them.
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